


Cowboy Diplomacy

by Todesengel



Category: Voltron: Lion Voltron
Genre: Alternative Universe - Old West, M/M, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-04-06
Updated: 2004-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-23 03:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Todesengel/pseuds/Todesengel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a hot day when the man they called Hunk rode into town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cowboy Diplomacy

It was a hot day when the man they called Hunk wandered into town. Word was that he was some kind of sheriff sent here on a special assignment. The (mostly) permanent residents of the requisite house of ill repute spent many hours in idle speculation about what was, exactly, the nature of said assignment, as Hunk spent most of his time eating. Only Keith, whose dalliances with Sven the Dark Priest and Lance Hawke had given him a certain inflated sense of self, stayed out of the speculation. Keith had better things to do than gossip—important things like making sure Lance and Sven hadn’t booked a date for the same day. Nobody was exactly sure if Keith was being shrewd by playing with both men or if he was just stupid. He played a dangerous game as Sven and Lance were bitter enemies and they wouldn’t hesitate to kill the kittenish Keith if they knew that the other had known the comforts of Keith’s arms and the pleasures of his bed.

Hunk didn’t know any of this, of course, so it wasn’t his fault that he acted on the arousal caused by the sight of Keith lounging indifferently against the dark stained wood of the salon’s counter. Keith could make a mountain tremble with desire with just one promise-laden glance of his smoldering basalt eyes. Hunk was as large as a mountain but not nearly as hard-hearted; he never stood a chance.

Keith, of course, was more than happy to take on another customer. Pidge, the whore who roomed next door, could easily attest to Keith’s insatiable appetite. Poor Hunk was merely one more in a long line of conquests. Some people (Pidge most notably) said that Keith had a mental disorder—an uncontrollable compulsion to have sex—and that his bedmates only fed his sickness. When asked about this Keith merely shrugged and said that he just really liked to be fucked.

Most of the men—and women—in town were more than happy to oblige.

The days passed in a hot, dusty fashion, one almost the same as the next. After a brief flurry of change caused by the new arrival, life settled into a neat routine. During the day, Hunk sat around outside the salon with the old men and pinched the bottoms of the serving girls, complaining about the heat and listening to the old stories and asking about the mountains that rose in the hazy distance. At night he mounted the stairs to Keith’s waiting arms. The townspeople liked Hunk, liked the way he could fix their guns and didn’t ask about the blood that turned the dust to mud. He was a good man to have around and everyone forgot about the fact that he was, supposedly, a sheriff on a secret mission.

It was a happy time, and so it couldn’t last because the heat was too intense for happiness to flourish.

The day Lance came back into town the air was dull and heavy with a storm and tension ran high. The dogs snapped at the hands of any foolish enough to try to pet them and the old brown nag, who pulled the mail cart, kicked out and broke the hip of the mayor’s daughter. Lance was bleeding, a little, so his first stop was the Doc. His next stop, after the Doc had pulled half a dozen slugs out of his body, was Keith’s bed.

Keith didn’t mind supplanting Hunk with Lance. Neither, apparently, did Hunk, who spent his subsequent nights playing poker and taking the rowdies for everything they had.

Sven crawled back into town a few days later. The storm that had been darkening the sky and filled the air with tension still hadn’t broken. Sven just added to the tension but he spent most of his days at the Doc’s, imbibing a great deal of alcohol as a healing aide. Most people said he had died, and his daily trek to the salon for whiskey and food in the wee hours of morning did little to stop the rumor.

The storm broke but the tension in the air only increased. Sven skulked in the streets licking his wounds and snarling. Lance left the burlesque house only once, but nobody knew what for, and kept an eye out for Sven. Hunk acted just as he always had, sitting out with the old men during the day and playing cards at night and he was, perhaps, the greatest cause of tension in the whole town. The sheriff spent his days drunk hoping that, when the time came, he would be too incapacitated to be expected to actually do anything. If Sven and Lance should happen to meet, the townsfolk knew there would be a dead body, but nobody knew what Hunk would do when that day came—would he arrest the two outlaws or would he just stay out of the way like everybody else?

The confrontation took place at one in the morning on an unremarkable Wednesday. Sven was dead sober when he came up the stairs to Keith's room and he had murder in his eyes. The Doc said that Sven had heard about Keith's two-timing, and that Lance had been the one who'd been cutting in on his 'turf' so to speak—the Dark Priest's eyes had gone cold and he'd left without a word. The Doc hadn't tried to stop him; instead he sighed and started to sterilize his instruments.

Pidge saw Sven enter Keith's room in cold silence. A few seconds later, a gunshot rang out and Hunk came rushing up the stairs. He slammed his shoulder against the door and burst in, gun drawn. A hoard of people followed him, stopping at the door to stare at the scene within.

It was a less than classic face off, since one of the participants was stark naked. Sven's gun was steadily trained on Lance, despite the fact that Keith was currently between Sven and his target. Keith was already bleeding, the bullet from the first shot having torn a gaping wound in his left shoulder, his blood a bright scarlet stain on his sheets. Hunk's gun was trained on Sven, sights as steady as a rock despite the fact that Hunk was huffing and puffing.

"Put the gun down, Sven," Hunk growled.

"Or what? You'll arrest me?" Sven cocked his gun and Keith's body tightened. Lance groped behind himself for his pants, eyes alight with a wild, reckless joy. "Just try it, sheriff man, and I'll blow everybody's brains out."

"Fuck no." Hunk cocked his own gun. "I'm no more a cop than you are a priest. No, I'm going to kill you, you fuck."

"No fucking way. If anybody kills Sven it's me." Lance had broken from the norm by pulling out a knife as well as a gun. The knife he held in a loose grip, ready to let it fly at a moments notice. He leered at the two men before him, heedless of the blood splatters that decorated his face and chest. "Maybe I'll kill you too. What d'you think, Keith? Would two heads be a better present than one?"

Keith shrugged and edged backwards on the bed, his skin growing ever more pale as his blood drained from his body.

"You give heads as gifts?" Hunk's eyes went dead. "That's just sick."

Lance laughed and licked his lips. "Sometimes I give other body parts away too. I was going to give Keith old Silver-head's dick after I killed him, but Sven got to the punk first. Tell me, Sven, did Lotor scream when you killed him? Did he beg?"

"I didn't--" Sven began, but Hunk's bellow cut him off.

"I'll kill you!" Hunk roared, his face red with anger. "I'll kill you for killing my brother!"

His finger tightened.

Three shots rang out.

When the screaming was over, it was Keith who was holding the smoking gun and Hunk, Lance and Sven who were dead. There was a bored expression on Keith's face, as though killing men were as commonplace for him as stepping on cockroaches. Pidge, who had been the only one of the whores brave enough to stick around once the guns were out, stared at Keith is shock.

"Who. What _are_ you?" he asked.

"Bounty hunter." Keith wiped the blood off his face with his right forearm and beckoned Pidge closer. The younger boy took a few cautious steps, hand feeling for the revolver he hid in his pants. Keith shot him a look of pure disgust. "Stop that boy. You'll never get it out in time. Now, do me a favor and go get the Doc and the Sheriff. I'm in no kind of condition to move these bodies, and I want my bounty damnit. Nine months I had to put up with these assholes before they finally got the balls to confront each other." He pushed Hunk's body with a foot. "This one was just luck."

Pidge, being a smart enough boy to know when not to argue, did as he was asked. It didn't take long for the Doc to stitch Keith up; the bullet had gone through cleanly. He healed quickly, and in no time at all he was ready to ride off into the hazy distance and seek the heads of new bandits. He left in the night, and the town was relieved to see him go.

And that was the last the little town of Arus ever heard of the man they'd thought to be a whore, the bounty hunter named Keith.


End file.
